Highlights

Leveraged negotiations skills training from Corporate Visions to help them discount according to a plan—using concession psychology—and to negotiate with a purpose throughout the buying cycle, not just at the end when the deal moves to purchasing.

Challenge

When Ceridian identified a knowledge, skills and abilities gap, the human resources software and services provider knew it needed a partner that could help them develop the skills they needed faster than they could themselves. Jay Greaves, VP sales effectiveness at Ceridian, said the company had a fantastic internal instructional design, but wanted to identify the right partner who could help them improve their reps’ negotiation skills, the area they needed to strengthen.

“We wanted someone who had expertise in the specific area that we were trying to address,” Greaves said.

Solution

Ceridian conducted market research to find the skills training solution that would give them the key performance improvements they needed to hit their growth numbers. “That led us to Corporate Visions…considered to be best of practice, best of breed in the space we were looking at,” Greaves said.

Ceridian took a closer look at Corporate Visions skills offerings to see how they’d been leveraged by other organizations to transform reps’ performance in the field.

According to Greaves, the match proved to be a strong one.

“A really neat thing was the alignment of our corporate cultures, and how their team really felt like a natural extension of our team,” Greaves said.

A big part of that partnership, he added, had to do with customizing the solutions to ensure the training was perfectly calibrated to address the specific skills challenges Ceridian faced.

“We talked about some of the things that were a little different from their customary delivery, and where we were trying to get some changes,” Greaves said. “[Corporate Visions] brought to the table customized solutions that really built on the success of the platform that was tried and true for them, but then added to that those gaps, those additional things that we were looking to address.”

Ceridian rolled the training out at its sales kickoff, and Greaves said the experience reinforced the value and alignment of the partnership. “It was interesting to see the facilitators at Corporate Visions sitting side-by-side with our sales team,” He said. “It really was like they were part of our organization and our team.”

As for the quality of the training, Greaves said: “They create great content that is researched, that is supported, that is justified. But it also comes down to delivery. I’ve been incredibly impressed with the caliber and the consistency of the facilitators that I’ve been working with that are actually executing.”